We left Vegas and flew to San Francisco and drove from the airport up to Napa, in time for my birthday present, which was a massage for the two of us (I thought that a relaxing massage in Vegas may have gone to waste if we then lost all of our money). We (and by we, I mean I) found a place to have them at SpaFinder – which turned out to be a lovely little storefront inside a strip center in Napa. The spa was very soothing, M and I sat in the waiting area with magazines and cucumber water while we waited for our masseuses to retrieve us.
The couples massage was actually a little odd – we had two masseuses with two very different philosophies of massage. Mine was a small, spunky woman in her sixties, and M’s was an average-sized woman in her mid thirties. Mine prefaced the massage by saying I should tell her if anything hurt, M’s did not. Mine was bending and contorting my body to stretch it in ways it had never been stretched, M’s did not. Mine gave me an exuberant scalp massage (read: crazy, Medusa-like hair with lotion in it), M’s did not. Mine definitely crossed the boundaries into the painful, while M’s did not. All in all, I felt very relaxed, though the next day I was a little sore. M was not as impressed, though I don’t know what I should have expected.
As we left, my masseuse ran out the door to catch us and ask us where we were going to dinner. We were glad that she did, as we had no idea, and were just going to ask at the hotel. She told us to head to the Rutherford Grill, and that it had the best food in town (well, in Rutherford). We checked it out on our phone web pages, and we saw that it was owned by the same people that own Houston's. We guessed that we could do worse, but that at least someone had recommended it. Dinner was pretty good - all the food was locally inspired and they had local wines, so all in all a good way to start the trip.
In my own passive-aggressive way, the last post was a way to bring the whole situate to a head. If she was truly reading it, she could respond, or write me an email, or call me, or just not talk to me for a while. :) I did receive an email, and I thought that (in another act of passive-aggressiveness, to check to see if she had actually stopped reading) I could post her response. I have actually not created a monster, I have created a martyr, as evidenced by the email below, which was sent to my siblings:
"Even though it is in the public domain, M has asked that I not read her blog. I am stifling her blogging muse, so to speak, so I must delete the link in deference to her literary urges.......I wonder if I have to ignore M's (the hubs) blog??????? hahhahahahahahaha"
I apologize for the radio silence, I've been facing somewhat of a dilemma. I still haven't reached an answer, so we'll throw it out for opinions. I started posting about our trip out west, and was planning to be better about posting, until I talked to my mom. In her characteristically devious (see the post about the m&m's at the wedding) she slipped into the conversation the fact that she has been reading my blog. Hmm. Yes, I write these posts and they're in the public domain, but I do have in mind a certain audience, and I know a few people who read it (AB, KL, MM (EW filled me in)), but it is not constructed for my mother. I know if I keep going as is, I'm going to censor myself, which is clearly not a good thing, but I don't want to stop the updates. Now what?
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I am so bad about blogging, but at least I am doing one now, right?Our trip was great, which was partially why I haven't written – it took forever for us to recover.We landed back in NYC at 9:30 pm, back to the apartment by 11:00, then couldn't get to sleep until 2 or 3 because of the jet lag, then the apartment proceeded to be a mess for the rest of the week until Saturday, when we went into power clean mode to have J&R over for dinner that Saturday (dumb idea, maybe, but it did force us to get the suitcases out of the living room).
Vegas was awesome, we had gotten a discount at the hotel for our room, so our total stay was less than $100 for two nights at the Paris hotel.Even though we only had two nights, I feel like we managed to do Vegas "right."Upon arrival, we were informed that we had been "comped" a facial or stone massage for each of us, as we had a couples massage booked for Napa, which we couldn't cancel by that point.After grabbing lunch, we gambled a little at our hotel, and after losing some money, we checked to see if our room was ready and checked in we walked down the strip and wandered around Caesar's Palace and the Palazzo.After dark we wandered back to the Bellagio to watch the water fountain show, right across from our hotel, which was great – I didn't realize that it's different for each song that they play when the fountain is running.We gambled a little there, then walked around trying to find dinner.We wound up at a noodle shop, where the food was delicious, but despite there being only 4 other tables, the service was horrible.Only one of our dishes came out first, and then not even with rice (which we had to order, since it was an extra charge).M nearly hit the fan, especially when our waiter disappeared during the whole fiasco.Luckily the soup was amazing, and that seemed to placate the hubs enough for us to leave without incident.
The next day, we woke up, played some blackjack, grabbed lunch, then came back to the hotel for our facials.I was excited, never having had a facial.I have decided I do not like them – why do I need someone to point out all of my skin flaws, rub collagen cream all through my hair (then tell me not to get my face wet for 24 hours), and try to sell me $160 face cream.Good thing it was free, especially as they were $180 each retail.We went upstairs and I stumbled through some semblance of washing my disgusting collagen-hair, then we walked back up the strip to the Wynn for dinner.
We arrived at the casino a little early, having given ourselves plenty of time so that we wouldn't be late for the show, so we hit the tables again.We sat down at a table with one other couple, then realized they were cashing out (oh no!).We were only at the table for 45 minutes or so, but we were up $150 between the two of us (I know – total high rollers), until this old man came up to the table and started playing not by the rules (when you're playing by the rules, or basic strategy, someone who is not playing by the rules can really screw up your cards).Unfortunately, he stood up to cash in just as we were getting up to head to dinner – even the dealer accused him of messing up our hands.
The restaurant was very nice, we had made reservations at the steakhouse, which overlooks an artificial waterfall that has a light show that goes off every few minutes.Every once in a while a GIANT frog sings "What a Wonderful World" from the top of the waterfall.Dinner was delightful – we ordered the rib-eye for two with hot peppers and onions – it was ginormous and so good (my mouth is watering just thinking about it).
The show we saw was "La Reve" which is by the Cirque du Soleil people, but not officially "by" them.It was crazy – the entire stage is a pool of water and everyone is running around in the water, then the floor sinks and they're swimming, then another tower would rise out of the water and they would jump off of it.Divers were jumping off of people hanging from the ceiling – it was crazy and beautiful and serene all at the same time.The only bummer was that I was fighting to stay awake after such a huge dinner, and afterwards we walked home and plopped into bed.
Next morning was our departure day, so we played cards for a while at our hotel.M had gone down early to play Pai Gow poker, which is a little less fun (in my opinion), but it's a slower burn on your cash reserves.He met me at the blackjack table, where I was entertaining two middle-aged and one more-than-middle-aged man.The key to getting comps is being the fun person at the table (which, if I say so myself, I am very good at doing, and M and I together make quite the pair).If you're having fun at the table, it is more likely that someone else will sit down with you or watch you plan and then sit down with you, which is what the casinos want.After winning back another $100 we got up to check-off the final box on our list, the buffet (our hotel was supposed to be one of the better ones).After waiting in line for 15-20 minutes, we got a table and started checking out the line. It was pretty good, but we must have timed it wrong – when we went through the line, almost all of the meats were overdone, but when we went back 15 minutes later, they looked much better.The highlight may have been the crepe bar for dessert – such a sucker I am for crepes. After lunch, our short time in Vegas was over, and we headed out on Virgin America (which is an odd, not bad, not good airline) to head to Napa.
